As part of the Airpower after Ukraine series, this essay argues the air war in Ukraine is a harbinger of air wars to come, when US adversaries will increasingly employ defense in vertical depth, layering the effects of cyber disruptions, electromagnetic jamming, air defenses, drones, and missiles in increasing degrees of strength, from higher to lower altitudes. Even if high-end fighters and bombers manage to gain air superiority in the “blue skies,” the airspace below them remains contested. The “air littoral”—that is, the airspace between ground forces and high-end fighters and bombers—then poses the more challenging and important contest for air control.

Read the article on the Atlantic Council.